Patents by Inventor Ryan Paul Thomas

Ryan Paul Thomas has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20240083321
    Abstract: An armrest center console for a vehicle includes a housing defining a storage bin, a track assembly having a first and second tracks provided on opposite sides of the housing, and an armrest cover assembly supported on the housing and having a deployable table. The armrest center console also includes a linkage assembly coupling the armrest cover assembly to the first and second tracks, wherein the armrest cover assembly is configured to slide forward on the first and second rail and to rotate upward via the linkage assembly to deploy the deployable table.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 14, 2022
    Publication date: March 14, 2024
    Applicant: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Gregory Paul Thomas, Glen D. Skinner, Brian Robb, Thomas Junior Luckett, Ryan Welch
  • Publication number: 20240005918
    Abstract: An audio controlled assistant captures environmental noise and converts the environmental noise into audio signals. The audio signals are provided to a system which analyzes the audio signals for a plurality of audio prompts, which have been customized for the acoustic environment surrounding the audio controlled assistant by an acoustic modeling system. The system configured to detect the presence of an audio prompt in the audio signals and transmit instructions associated with the detected audio prompt to at least one of the audio controlled assistant or one or more cloud based services, in response.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 13, 2023
    Publication date: January 4, 2024
    Inventors: John Daniel Thimsen, Gregory Michael Hart, Ryan Paul Thomas
  • Patent number: 11862153
    Abstract: An audio controlled assistant captures environmental noise and converts the environmental noise into audio signals. The audio signals are provided to a system which analyzes the audio signals for a plurality of audio prompts, which have been customized for the acoustic environment surrounding the audio controlled assistant by an acoustic modeling system. The system configured to detect the presence of an audio prompt in the audio signals and transmit instructions associated with the detected audio prompt to at least one of the audio controlled assistant or one or more cloud based services, in response.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2024
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: John Daniel Thimsen, Gregory Michael Hart, Ryan Paul Thomas
  • Publication number: 20220148590
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 12, 2021
    Publication date: May 12, 2022
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Patent number: 11176936
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2021
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Patent number: 10964315
    Abstract: An approach to wakeword detection uses an explicit representation of non-wakeword speech in the form of subword (e.g., phonetic monophone) units that do not necessarily occur in the wakeword and that broadly represent general speech. These subword units are arranged in a “background” model, which at runtime essentially competes with the wakeword model such that a wakeword is less likely to be declare as occurring when the input matches that background model well. An HMM may be used with the model to locate possible occurrences of the wakeword. Features are determined from portions of the input corresponding to subword units of the wakeword detected using the HMM. A secondary classifier is then used to process the features to yield a decision of whether the wakeword occurred.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2021
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Minhua Wu, Sankaran Panchapagesan, Ming Sun, Shiv Naga Prasad Vitaladevuni, Bjorn Hoffmeister, Ryan Paul Thomas, Arindam Mandal
  • Publication number: 20190325873
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 1, 2019
    Publication date: October 24, 2019
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Patent number: 10424292
    Abstract: An audio controlled assistant captures environmental noise and converts the environmental noise into audio signals. The audio signals are provided to a system which analyzes the audio signals for a plurality of audio prompts, which have been customized for the acoustic environment surrounding the audio controlled assistant by an acoustic modeling system. The system configured to detect the presence of an audio prompt in the audio signals and transmit instructions associated with the detected audio prompt to at least one of the audio controlled assistant or one or more cloud based services, in response.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 24, 2019
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: John Daniel Thimsen, Gregory Michael Hart, Ryan Paul Thomas
  • Patent number: 10283119
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2019
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Publication number: 20180315425
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 30, 2018
    Publication date: November 1, 2018
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Patent number: 9959869
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 4, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2018
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Publication number: 20180012597
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 4, 2017
    Publication date: January 11, 2018
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias., Ying Shi., Imre Attila Kiss., Ryan Paul Thomas., Frederic Johan Georges Deramat.
  • Patent number: 9818407
    Abstract: An efficient audio streaming method and apparatus includes a client process implemented on a client or local device and a server process implemented on a remote server or server(s). The client process and server process each have speech recognition components and communicate over a network, and together efficiently manage the detection of speech in an audio signal streamed by the local device to the server for speech recognition and potentially further processing at the server. The client process monitors audio input and in a first detection stage, implements endpointing on the local device to determine when speech is detected. The client process may further determine if a “wakeword” is detected, and then the client process opens a connection and begins streaming audio to the server process via the network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 7, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventors: Hugh Evan Secker-Walker, Kenneth John Basye, Nikko Strom, Ryan Paul Thomas
  • Patent number: 9754589
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 2, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Patent number: 9706406
    Abstract: Approaches are described for detecting when an electronic device (such as a mobile phone) has been stolen or is otherwise being used by someone other than an authorized user of the device. At least one sensor of the device can obtain data during a current use of the device, and the device can determine from the data a set of available features. The features can be compared to a corresponding model associated with an owner (or other authorized user) of the device to generate a confidence value indicative of whether the current user operating the device is likely the owner of the device. The confidence value can be compared to at least one confidence threshold, for example, and based on the comparison, the current user can be provided access to at least a portion of functionality of the device and/or a security action can be performed when the confidence value does not at least meet at least one confidence threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 11, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey Penrod Adams, Ryan Paul Thomas, Bjorn Hoffmeister
  • Patent number: 9697827
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for reducing errors in speech recognition processing. Methods for reducing errors can include receiving multiple speech recognition hypotheses based on an utterance indicative of a command or query of a user and determining a command or query within a grammar having a least amount of difference from one of the speech recognition hypotheses. The determination of the least amount of difference may be based at least in part on a comparison of individual subword units along at least some of the sequence paths of the speech recognition hypotheses and the grammar. For example, the comparison may be performed on the phoneme level instead of the word level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey Paul Lilly, Ryan Paul Thomas, Jeffrey Penrod Adams
  • Publication number: 20170116985
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 2, 2016
    Publication date: April 27, 2017
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Patent number: 9436678
    Abstract: Features are disclosed for processing a user utterance with respect to multiple subject matters or domains, and for selecting a likely result from a particular domain with which to respond to the utterance or otherwise take action. A user utterance may be transcribed by an automatic speech recognition (“ASR”) module, and the results may be provided to a multi-domain natural language understanding (“NLU”) engine. The multi-domain NLU engine may process the transcription(s) in multiple individual domains rather than in a single domain. In some cases, the transcription(s) may be processed in multiple individual domains in parallel or substantially simultaneously. In addition, hints may be generated based on previous user interactions and other data. The ASR module, multi-domain NLU engine, and other components of a spoken language processing system may use the hints to more efficiently process input or more accurately generate output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2016
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lambert Mathias, Ying Shi, Imre Attila Kiss, Ryan Paul Thomas, Frederic Johan Georges Deramat
  • Patent number: 9286897
    Abstract: In an automatic speech recognition (ASR) processing system, ASR processing may be configured to process speech based on multiple channels of audio received from a beamformer. The ASR processing system may include a microphone array and the beamformer to output multiple channels of audio such that each channel isolates audio in a particular direction. The multichannel audio signals may include spoken utterances/speech from one or more speakers as well as undesired audio, such as noise from a household appliance. The ASR device may simultaneously perform speech recognition on the multi-channel audio to provide more accurate speech recognition results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2016
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventors: Michael Maximilian Emanuel Bisani, Nikko Strom, Bjorn Hoffmeister, Ryan Paul Thomas
  • Patent number: 9275637
    Abstract: Natural language controlled devices may be configured to activate command recognition in response to one or more wake words. Techniques are provided to receive a candidate word for evaluation as a wake word that activates a natural language control functionality of a computing device. The candidate word may include one or more words or sounds. Values for multiple wake word metrics are then determined. The candidate word is evaluated based on the various wake word metrics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2016
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Stan Weidner Salvador, Jeffrey Paul Lilly, Frederick V. Weber, Jeffrey Penrod Adams, Ryan Paul Thomas